I apologize if this is a little too exciting but I have been looking for this food the last few, uh, 119 days. I had it at this food festival, loved it, bought out the vendor (it was the end of the day and they only had a gallon left) but I may have fallen in love with toum (it’s a dip made primarily of garlic, oil, and lemon but that really doesn’t tell the whole story the garlic is sweet).
I found toum at the fancy grocery today :3
I spent the evening eating pita covered in labne (tangy Lebanese yogurt) and toum. There’s a farmers’ market a few towns over where this guy sells the best bolani and now I can’t wait until market day.
Photo: Joe Lingeman
Fun trick: if you have a bunch of garlic to peel, separate the cloves, put them in a large bowl, put another large bowl over the top (inverted, like a clam shell), and shake the hell out of it. You’ll find all the cloves have completely separated from the papery outsides.